The boycott of Simon Commission by Indian negotiators sounded the death knell of the British Raj in India. (Cartoonist - David Low (1891-1963) Published - Evening Standard, 11 Feb 1928). Click for larger image.

Beginning of the end

With the rejection of Simon Commission and the death of Lala Lajpat Rai, a triumphant Congress took pole position, in the race among Indians, to throw the British back into the sea. As the British realized their futile position, and the Indian leadership took over initiative from the British, a few things happened.

British favored the Congress

The Congress leadership (especially Gandhiji) was favored with a significant negotiating position by the British.

During these negotiations with the British Raj, the Congress adopted some unorthodox ideas, in the Indian political context of that time. These Congress proposals were momentous and path-breaking for India. Though Western opinion was uniformly derisive and dismissive, Indians suspended their judgment on these Congress proposals.

Asuric maya against the asurs

Based on the collaborative-school of ideology, promoted by Gokhale-Chiplunkar-Phule and Arya-Brahma-Samaj, Congress proposed that Indians must embrace the Western-Asuric model of the State as a pivot of their future.

Whatever elements that remained ofभारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra based on a defined, limited, narrow concept of polity related to rule as per dharmashastras, would take a back-seat, the Congress proposed.

Instead, the Congress strongly pressed its claim that the Western system of governance was what India needed to end and recover from the 100-odd years of ‘peak’ British misrule.

Congress writes its own ticket

After a few decades of debate and discussions, so be it, was the Indian decision on this Congress model. Since, the Congress seemed to be in a position to best deliver the ‘goods’, they got a carte-blanche from Indians.

The ways of the West

The Congress model was based on 5-points of significant departure from Indic model of polity.

Common currency for India based on legal tender laws. Private coinage or multi-currency system would no longer be legal practice.

20:20 hindsight

The failure (partial success, if you must) of the State on 4 of the 5 parameters is clear and sure. Every Indian success has been hobbled by the remaining four elements of this compact.

Whether it was the Anglo-Jinnah idea of Pakistan or the significant corruption in the Indian system (like in any system based on concentration of power), each are a result of this 5-point compact that Congress sold to Indians.

Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar – all saw a need for a strong centre. Inspite of Gandhiji’s push for Ram-Rajya (his description of भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra) and village panchayats, decentralized governance was finally deemed as outdated, ancient and ‘inefficient.’

The British started deifying Gandhiji. This cartoon titled "The saint and the tiger" (Cartoonist - David Low (1891-1963) Published - Evening Standard, 20 Jan 1948). Click for larger image.

But the newly independent Indian State was allowed to implement the system of fiat currency without much ado. Morarji Desai’s hare-brained gold control laws were accepted with a slight whimper.

As the existence of a pan-Indian currency is seen as an essential to the well-being of the Indian nation, enthusiasm for the Indian currency idea remains strong. Witness the steady public demand for RBI’s periodic issues of commemorative coins and notes.

All these point towards a certain trust and space that Indians have vested with the Indian Government. Some may say, it is not faith, trust and hope, but a long rope given to the Indian Government.

The time has come when Indians must do two things:-

Plan to phase out this 5-point compact. This was not an endless, open-ended agreement by both sides.

Hold the GOI’s feet to fire on defence preparedness. After 63 years of British departure, this is the last thing that the State must deliver to India.

The idea of co-opting India into the Anglo-Saxon Bloc is apparent from this cartoon. India - a source of 'immi-grunts'. (Cartoonist - David Low (1891-1963) Published - Evening Standard, 10 Jan 1950). Click for larger image.

Empty shell of a giant crustacean

India and Indians must come out from the shell of this now irrelevant compact. This compact has proved three things clearly:-

The ‘erstwhile’ Muslim rulers of India, who claimed they were superior to Indians and the nation of India. After more than 6 decades, they have demonstrated themselves to be the inept rulers of Pakistan.

The British stand, naked and shivering in fright, at their emerging irrelevance. The British claim of superiority, based on how they had ‘built’ England to Great Britain can now be seen as false and hollow. British misrule of Britain, has presided over the downhill ride of Britain. From super-power status to a situation where British themselves question British claim as a P5 State in the UN Security Council – with gross national debt (public, individual and corporate) of 500%.

Indian capability to rebuild – after salvaging whatever of value was left from the wreckage of colonialism, the Partition, the Great Bengal Famine, impoverishment, hunger, disease, social destruction on an unprecedented scale.

Cartoon courtesy - timesofindia.com. Click for larger image.

India’s 5-point compact is in its terminal stage of irrelevance – having outlived its usefulness to India. Time to junk it – and all those who propose its continuation.

Be as it may, the turning point is still some distance away. It is early days to start work on a road-map for a smooth transition from the democratic Republican State to an India based on भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra.

American aid came at a price; recalcitrant nations had a 'regime' change'; India became closer to Soviet Russia. (Cartoonist - David Low (1891-1963) Published - The Manchester Guardian, 20 Aug 1957). Click for larger image.

Romancing the Raj

Modern Indians carry this rather ignorant impression that Indians railways was a departing gift by the British to independent India. This is especially true of post-Independence, 2nd and 3rd generation Indians, who never travelled or saw the colonial railway system trains.

This impression is aided and abetted by Western media too. Recently, Robert Kaplan writing in The Atlantic gushed how the “British, by contrast, brought tangible development, ports and railways, that created the basis for a modern state” of India.

As though, India could not have ‘bought’ or developed railway technology on its own – from or without the British. After all India has developed a significant air-transport system. Or the comprehensive road network – which is getting further expanded and upgraded.

A further examination of facts exposes a completely different picture about the British claims about Indian Railways also.

Elephants were widely used instead of engines – due to engine shortage and easier maneuverability of elephants.Click on image for larger picture.

Indian Railway system too suffered from this approach. Especially after WWI, the Great Depression and the currency crisis, starved of investments and renewal, Indian railways suffered.

During WW2, nearly 40% rolling stock from India was diverted to the Middle East. More than 50% of the track system was the outdated metre gauge and narrow gauge. Track systems were nearly a century old. 40% of the railway system went to Pakistan. 32 of the forty-two separate railway systems operating in India, were owned by the former Indian princely states. More than 8000 outdated steam engines were used as motive power – and less than 20 diesel locomotives were in use. Apart from elephants and people – called as ‘hand-shunting’ in Indian Railways lingo.

So much for the British gift of railways to India.

Rampant extraction

The railways run by the Indian princely states became party to the collusive price fixing systems. Like this extract (linked to the right) shows, all the business went to the British engineering yards. To this add the guaranteed returns systems, and what was achieved was something else.

Indians enthusiastically took to train travel from the start. This confounded the arguments made by some who suggested that considerations of caste and religion would lead many South Asians to shun train travel because they would not agree to the close personal proximity sitting or standing in the coaches required. Women for reasons of modesty or demands of seclusion were expected to be particularly resistant to rail travel. Others argued that poverty would make travel by train impossible for all but the well-to-do. In the event many of all castes, classes and gender traveled by train. (from Engines of change: the railroads that made India By Ian J. Kerr.).

Third-class passengers quickly became and remained the most numerous passengers and the railroads’ largest source of revenue from passenger traffic. High volumes-87 percent of passengers carried in 1902 traveled in third-class-more than compensated for low fares. (from Engines of change: the railroads that made India By Ian J. Kerr.).

Safety last

Starved of investments and maintenance, the railways infrastructure at the time of British departure was crumbling. Colonial British (subsequently, the Indian also) response was to affix the blame onto the employee at the lowest rung and move onto the next one accident.

Elephant shunting a train on the Bengal-Nagpur railway. Picture quality makes it probably from WWII period.

Post-independence India continued with this practice – till LB Shastri called a halt to this. In 1956, the Madras-Tuticorin express plunged into a river when a bridge at Ariyalur (Tamil Nadu) was washed away in floods. 144 (some records suggest 156) passengers died. Shastri resigned from the Union Cabinet – claiming moral responsibility for the railway accident.

This resignation saw LB Shastri become a political legend. This (resignation) also changed the mindset of the Indian Railways. After fresh elections of 1957, one year later, he was re-inducted into the Union Cabinet.

Steadily, over 30 years, Indian railways infrastructure was upgraded. And accidents decreased.

But the problems did not end there. The Great Gift of the British to India, railways was not only a vast scrap heap of metal, but a den of corruption – as documented in the Railway Corruption Enquiry Committee (J. B. Kriplani), 1955. Corruption and safety took another 50 years – by the 1990’s, by when the the entire railway system was modernized and computerized.

What we see today

In 1952, it was decided that IIIrd class passengers deserved fans and light. It took another 7 years to implement this decision. Elephants used for shunting wagons, box-cars, finally got a respite after WDS-4B shunters were introduced by Chittaranjan Locomotive Works in 1969. Safety bars in windows were introduced on night trains in a phased manner over the 1970s. Till then, most trains had open windows leading to passenger-safety issues. Earlier, it meant“getting into a third-class general compartment — through the window, literally pushed in by someone on the platform. Well, now all the windows have a grill provided for the safety of the passengers”.

Extract from A history of modern India, 1480-1950 By Claude Markovits, page 433. Click on picture for larger text.

It took a non-Congress Government in 1977 to change the face of Indian Railways. Prof.Madhu Dandavate, the Railway Minister in the 1977 Janata Government started the railway renaissance in India. 3rd class railway travel was abolished. Wooden-slat seats were abolished. Cushioned 2nd class seating system was made minimum and standard. Train time tables were re-configured. Reservation systems improved. Railways started getting profitable.

On 25th December, 1941, the first 15 recruits joined the Azad Hind Fauj (or the Indian National Army). Raised by Subhash Chandra Bose from Indian POWs captured by Germans, they left the next day for Frankenburg, for the first training camp of the Azad Hind Fauj. After a warm send off from Indian residents at Berlin office of Free India Center.

February 27th 1931, the legend of Chandrasekhar Azad was born and Chandrasekhar Tiwari died – killing himself with his last bullet rather than be taken prisoner by the colonial British Administration.

1929 – April 8th, was the day when Bhagat Singh threw leaflets (with an fireworks device) in Delhi Central Assembly, protesting against an ordinance permitting repressive measures by the colonial administration.

The boycott of Simon Commission by Indian negotiators sounded the death knell of the British Raj in India | Cartoonist – David Low (1891-1963) Published – Evening Standard, 11 Feb 1928 | Click for larger image.

Before the answer, some other historic examples.

14 July 1789 – A crowd of Parisians, stormed the Bastille prison – which held only 7 prisoners. This sparked off the French Revolution. The French emperor, Louis XVI’s execution happened more than 3 years later on January 21, 1793. Only in 1804, 5 years later was Napoleon I, crowned as Emperor of the French.

Or is it that India is still not a free country.

There are lakhs of under trial prisoners languishing in Indian jails. Hundreds are killed in “encounters’ by police. More than 10,000 laws (most of them, oppressive, colonial laws) on every conceivable subjects (and some imaginative also) chain Indians, make them habitual law breakers and engender corruption on a horrific scale.

By any global scale these are small numbers. But by Indian historical precedents, these are big injustices.

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